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25 February 2017

Sandbox - 25feb17

[One of our daughters is visiting this weekend and we decided to take in the gun show at fairgrounds today. The entire show fit into the Amaral Center and was very well attended; in fact there were actually too many people there back to back and belly to belly. But the show itself was a bit sad - not enough shooting hardware. No major manufacturers showing off their line, the reason being that gun makers are not sending as much of their new stuff to California to be put through the regulatory and testing hoops to make sure they are up to snuff in a state that really wants to confiscate every last gun from civilian hands. Another sign of the times. gjr]

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Miserable 21st Century

You may have sensed that the economy was in far more trouble than the press and the political hacks were willing to admit. Nicholas Eberstadt, an economist agrees and provides the numbers to make his case for Our Miserable 21st Century

From work to income to health to social mobility, the year 2000 marked the beginning of what has become a distressing era for the United States

It turns out that the year 2000 marks a grim historical milestone of sorts for our nation. For whatever reasons, the Great American Escalator, which had lifted successive generations of Americans to ever higher standards of living and levels of social well-being, broke down around then—and broke down very badly.

The warning lights have been flashing, and the klaxons sounding, for more than a decade and a half. But our pundits and prognosticators and professors and policymakers, ensconced as they generally are deep within the bubble, were for the most part too distant from the distress of the general population to see or hear it. (So much for the vaunted “information era” and “big-data revolution.”) Now that those signals are no longer possible to ignore, it is high time for experts and intellectuals to reacquaint themselves with the country in which they live and to begin the task of describing what has befallen the country in which we have lived since the dawn of the new century.

The journal Nature is going to begin requiring reproducibility in submitted papers

What about all those published papers in which the science could not be reproduced. Where is the list of un-reproduced scientific papers? So far, I do not know of any scientists that was able to reproduce the Mann Hockey Stick Paper.

From the Journal of Irreproducible Science – over 2/3s of researchers say they are unable to replicate study results

Nice summary of our current political environment by Fox News's Tucker Carlson

“Look, it’s really simple,” Carlson says. “The SAT 50 years ago pulled a lot of smart people out of every little town in America and funneled them into a small number of elite institutions, where they married each other, had kids, and moved to an even smaller number of elite neighborhoods. We created the most effective meritocracy ever.”

“But the problem with the meritocracy,” he continues, is that it “leeches all the empathy out of your society … The second you think that all your good fortune is a product of your virtue, you become highly judgmental, lacking empathy, totally without self-awareness, arrogant, stupid—I mean all the stuff that our ruling class is.”

Read in the SacBee today that South Africa is having a massive problem with illegal immigrants. And there are protests. Seems the crime rate is way up. And the lack of jobs is tremendous. 30% unemployment. So now a new political party is forming to deal with the influx of illegals. Of course the basis of the story is how it compares to Trump. They call these black citizens in South Africa "xenophobes" and worse. In our country that "journalist" would never write the story for fear of being called racist. So there you have it. Blacks in South Africa are the equal of Trump and those who oppose unfettered illegal immigration. I bet the media's heads are exploding!

I was at the Shot Show last month and it seemed numbers have been on the decline every year over the past 4 shows. The show used to be primarily a hunting and sport shooting event, but anymore it is a tactical weapons exposition. Hardly any elk, goose or duck calling and Mossy Oak has been largely replaced with urban camo. Human silhouettes far out numbered game animals. The aim of shooting sports has changed drastically in the last decade. To each his own, but I find the declining interest in outdoor sports and recreation to be quite troubling.

SacBee page 5E for Russ and Watts. You need to read the grant whores pleas for money. My response to the email of one of the writers.

"After reading this fantasy I am contacting my representatives to ask your ilk be defunded. You are really not in the real world! The Oroville dam being used by you to make a point about global warming is ridiculous. And your denial of the amount of snow-pack is breathtaking. We have received a lot of rain but we also did in the fifties, 80's and 1997. This is normal. But you need more grant money so you make these wild claims. The aquifers in the valley are getting a huge dose of water. The reservoirs are full so we can grow our crops and you urban types can fill your pools and wash your Prius.

The article was simply a plea for more grant money and you people jinn up fears through your "modeling" that is totally bogus. Shame on you. Hopefully Pruitt will cut you all off your drug money.

jons 1034am - Good points. My analysis concludes that shooting 'sports' are declining because every year there are more hoops to jump through to be able to hunt, and less land on which to hunt. On the other hand the 2nd Amend reasons for our guns are steadily increasing as news of terrorism, gratuitous crime, and growing Leviathan is daily drummed into us from the news. (After all Obama was the world's best gun salesman ever.)

Gun ownership is on a steady decline, yet gun owners possess more guns than ever. Reportedly the average owner has about seven guns which seems like a reasonable number to me. What doesn't seem reasonable, using the gun ownership drivers you identify, and that I agree with, why does gun ownership jump from zero to seven? It would SEEM that the average Joe wanting a piece to fend for the wife and kids would have a gun or two, rather than an arsenal. Hunters and sporting shooters have a need (okay, a strong excuse in my case) for a range of weapon profiles, but home defense needs are pretty straight forward and singular in purpose. My gut would tell me that the demise of hunting would decrease the average number of weapons per household, but the rage-filled media would drive numbers of individual gun owners upward. Not truly understanding what I am seeing here.

What those numbers do not capture are all the grey market, gun show, passed down in the family and person to person sales. Additionally they do not capture or even estimate how many are in the hands of criminals. Think stolen from homes and gun shop lootings as well as self manufactured from parts. The fed data only captures a slice of the pie.

Then you have the ammunition issue in CA, lots of folks bulk purchasing out of state now because they want to stay off the books. Just like reloading supplies will be big this year just because people don't want to be on the gubments lists. ;-)

Gun ownership down you say? Now how many of those were law abiding citizens, that were MADE criminals by the government, just because of a law change? You never hear about these changes until you wind up in cuffs, and in front of a judge and hear, "ignorance of the law is no excuse". Who checks what the law is before heading out the door? You just about need to these days.

Walt 12:15. Gun ownership is up, but there are reportedly more guns in fewer hands. Invisible guns is of course the wildcard, but DOJ claims they know roughly how many unreported guns are in circulation. I can only surmise they have some calculation based on arrests and reports of stolen guns??

Just went to a gun show here in Tucson. Huge - perhaps 80 vendors. The S&W 40 I bought in CA but is no longer available in CA was on sale here for $180 less. I bought an ammo box full of reloads for a very decent price. I asked the salesman where they came from - MilWal in Grass Valley! I asked if I could get the same deal in Grass Valley. No - not in California he said. Jon 12:39 - I doubt the feds can ever know how many people have how many guns. Most of mine are grandfathered - like from my father and grandfather. California cannot possibly enforce their existing laws, even as the left dreams up new ones.

U.S. immigration authorities are barring entry to a 21-year-old Syrian cinematographer who worked on a harrowing film about his nation's civil war, "The White Helmets," which has been nominated for an Academy Award....

Khateeb was scheduled to arrive Saturday in Los Angeles on a Turkish Airlines flight departing from Istanbul. But his plans have been upended after U.S. officials reported finding "derogatory information" regarding Khateeb....

The White Helmets," a 40-minute Netflix documentary, has been nominated for the Oscar for documentary short....

The film focuses on the rescue workers who risk their lives to save Syrians affected by civil war. Many of the group's members have been killed by Syrian President Bashar Assad's air forces. The group also was nominated for last year's Nobel Peace Prize.

"The White Helmets" includes emblematic scenes of the deadly 6-year-old conflict: people digging through destroyed homes looking for survivors, at constant risk of "double tap" attacks that target first responders after they've arrived at the scene of a strike.

You couldn't pass the background check to get a license poor ol' PE @ 133.

Poor ol' pollhead PE @ 154, its good to hear that homeland is actively doing its job. Are we supposed to say; aww since the limousine liberals want to give a flavor of the month nomination to someone who couldn't pass the background check, just let him in?

First in a series I'm going to call' You didn't write that newsman so how is that part of 'your' series? ;-)

GR 2:53 Poor phrasing, but seven seems like an awful lot of guns for the "average" owner. For all of the people who own a single gun or maybe two, it means that a great many owners must have dozens, or many dozens of firearms to bring the average to seven.

Well poor ol' PE you can borrow a cup of C4 anytime, we could have our neighborhood watch tank come by if you need it now and then. Flamethrowers in a pine forest are not a good thing. Get yourself a good ma deuce and all will be well, except the rounds are pricey so singles and short bursts are a must. ;-)

jons 302pm - from your comments, I presume you are not a shooter (or gun owner?). Shooters own different guns for the same reason that music lovers own different CDs, etc, that fountain pen fanciers have a whole set of different pens, pipe smokers have different pipes (and tobaccos), car lovers have several cars, ... . Shooting a variety of guns (actions, calibers, vintage models, ...) is a lot of fun. Add to that the camaraderie of gun aficionados and you have a very active and rewarding affinity group.

This is a no brainer, unless you need it explained to ya over and over again. Or, just get lazy and blame the evil corporate money grubbing yellow bellied 1%ers. Blaming others is easier and less painful than blaming yourself, I reckon.

"When California implemented the Dream Act, it cut its own throat. Undocumented and nonresident students became eligible for literally millions of dollars in state financial aid. The costs of the program are expected to reach $88.6 Billion in fiscal year 2017-2018, according to Campus Reform."

GR 3:13- I am a lifelong shooter and have a number of long guns for specific hunting purposes (.300, .308, .223, a couple of 22's and three shotguns) and several handguns for plinking and home protection. I must admit to being stunned by the idea the the "average" gun owner has seven guns. I know many, many people who have weapons and most have one or maybe two guns, primarily for defense.

from jon: "I must admit to being stunned by the idea the the "average" gun owner has seven guns."
Why are you stunned? George isn't. And I imagine that most of the conservatives that post here are not stunned. My grandfather had a collection of over 100 firearms. No, I don't have them, they ended up being the property of my mother and she wanted them sold. One amusing point is that I notice the more 'liberal' side here seems to assume only the man in the family needs a fire arm. Almost every male I know who possesses firearms is wed to a woman who owns one or more guns.
And I would say that the govt claiming they have a good idea of the number non-registered guns is just a silly guess. It's not verifiable anyway, so they can claim anything they want.
I'll confess that I'm mystified by the fascination that lefties have with fire arms. They seem to be completely unable to separate the 2 different ideas of gun ownership and the problem of illegal violence in society. There appears to be some kind of magical difference in how a person is murdered. Shot to death? OH, MY GOD! Throat slit open? Meh.
Tossed in front of the metro? Hey - it's the big city - stuff happens.
Hard to have a rational discussion about fire arms, but we can try.

Good point Scott, not just the moms, I know families were the teens have their own stuff. Think of a family with three competitive sons, each son has at least a pistol and rifle, shotgun of their own. We all know how well our teen boys shared, right? So your rack up a lot of individual units but the guns show up as moms and dads, not the kids. The fed numbers on guns are like the massaged unemployment rate, interesting but less relevant than they would have us believe. ;-)

Growing up my two brothers and I each had a rifle, we earned those guns shoveling driveways in the 52-53 winter and treasured them. Unfortunately, they were stolen from the rifle rack in my brother's pickup. However, he was more upset about the dog they also stole than the rifles and the packaged deer meat he was bringing home from the meat processing plant.

The truth is out there, it just takes some time to shake off the political correctness!

Swedish policeman blames migrants for the majority of country’s rapes and shootings and accuses politicians of ‘turning a blind eye.’ “Prosecutors launched an inquiry, suggesting he had incited racial hatred, but later dropped the charges. Now Springare has told The Sunday Times: ‘The highest and most extreme violence – rapes and shooting – is dominated by criminal immigrants.'”

Two 30-40 Krags and one Winchester Model 1892 lever action .25-20, loved that gun. My dad had a .308, Russian bolt action that had been "sporterized". Family guns included a .410 single barrel shotgun and a double barrel 20 gauge shotgun for quail and pheasant hunting. .22 pump action for rattlesnakes and "Praire Chickens".

It would be far too easy for me to engage the loyal members of the Rebane Revolutionaries in a contest to measure the relative magnitude of our masculinity by the number and caliber of firearms that we own. Suffice it to say, I already have what I "need," but I aspire to acquire more of what I "want."

Isn't that what "freedom," in terms of the Second Amendment, is all about?

"Anti-Trump activism seems to have little to do with the political arts required to win elections — finding common ground, forging alliances, making friends. Instead all of these demonstrations are about denouncing enemies, and making yourself feel better about the November defeat by gathering publicly with those who share your rage. This sort of thinking leads to such self-defeating acts as interrupting traffic in places like New York City (where Trump got 18 percent of the vote) or San Francisco (9 percent).

If you want to persuade working-class Trump voters in Wisconsin to join your cause, annoying rich liberal Democrats trying to get to work a thousand miles away is a strange way to go about it."

Trump is down to only +2 in Rasmussen Polls-lost 4 points over the weekend. Losing ground again in Gallup to -12. I figure he'll bottom out at about 3o support in a few weeks which is pathetic but probably reflects his core support . That's approaching Bushville who actually went as low as 29. Te more he plays to his crowd the lower he drops.

"The father of the Navy SEAL killed in a botched Yemen raid last month wants an investigation into the White House-ordered operation that claimed his son’s life.

Bill Owens, the father of Chief Petty Officer William “Ryan” Owens, the Navy SEAL who died in the operation, accuses the Trump administration of using his son as a political prop in an interview published Sunday in The Miami Herald.

“Don’t hide behind my son’s death to prevent an investigation,” he said of the mission, which was intended for servicemen to gather laptops, cellphones and intelligence about al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula but morphed into a fiery battle that killed Owens and several civilians.

“I want an investigation. … The government owes my son an investigation,” he told The Herald, adding that he couldn’t bear to meet President Donald Trump when he came to pay his respects as Ryan’s casket was carried off the military plane."

You didn't pay much attention to my contributions to this blog that condemned the Obama foreign policy during those times. I did not vote for Obama in '12 largely because of his foreign policy. Might I remind you that most of the contributors to this blog continued to support Bush in '04 despite the total disaster of the War in Iraq that caused Trump to call for Bush's impeachment for lying.

I have stated innumerable times that the Obama Foreign policy was a total failure and did not vote for him 2nd time around. I believe you voted third party, Libertaran I recall. Please correct me if I'm wrong. My question to you is why you seem to support Trumps defense policy when it is so contrary to any Libertarian belief in minimal foreign military involvement. Do you subscribe to the Ron Paul foreign policy as outlined in his essay "Why we Fight"?

I believe you voted third party, Libertarian I recall. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Yes....Johnson this time. I would, of course have voted for Ron Paul in the general if he hadn't been shafted so badly by Mittens during the convention.

And I don't support the Trump foreign policy.....yet.

It is as stated earlier a continuation of that of the previous two administrations.....three if you let the tolerances slip sufficiently. We'll see if his disjointed style works better than a more traditional foreign policy. In any case other than being off put personally by the man your over the top reaction seems a little funny from a self described Green Libertarian. Hillary was expected to be far more bellicose than Trump out of the gate. If your focus is on not having a war of any significance he seems, at this point, to be the better of the two options.

The DOJ announced it is dropping 0's law suit against the TX voter ID law.

Poor ol' pollhead PE must have missed (wink wink) the WSJ poll that said 60% are very optimistic about the United States future! That's a ringing endorsement of the policies of the new administration. ;-)

Yep, that mission was a disaster. Planned in the O last months, and too much in haste to go through with it in hindsight. Should have got all the new teams in place, but Trump gave the go ahead to what was already in the works. Haven't read one article on it.

All I know is from the men from the firing line is that they knew we were coming. They had a good trap, moving women and children around, downed aircraft, and waiting for us. Somebody might have tipped them off. No proof, just hearsay. Saddens me on too many fronts to mention.

Like we are finding out, The Warrior Monk can only do so much until T Rex cleans out State, whoever cleans out Intel, and RNC Reince plugs the WH. Big Swamp. It won't happen likely that again, but there are no guarantees in matters of love and war. The whole thing is not as it is published, IMHO.

No links, no proof. Just communications and skuttlebutt from 24 hours after.

1:54pm. What do you expect him to say? There is a spy in the Shadow Govetnment? Did you want to him throw the military under the bus? To throw Somebody under the bus? Blame it on a fighter pilot who was called in to assist with the unexpected ferocious firefight and hit the target..or wrong target? Trump will take the fall, but he won't point fingers.
We got some of what we were after and the numbers uno bad guy got away. More Intel, more electronic stuff like hard drives taken. Looks like Yemen is on the radar. Go where the Islamic Terriorists are.

My, my. Mr. Boardman wore a good article in the Union. Kudos, Mr. Boardman.
He surprises me now and then. He even got through an entire editorial without saying "white supremacist." Make that a double surprise. He is moving on to the bargaining stage. Somebody had to be first.

What an egomaniac. Trump thinks the world revolves around him. Cracks me up. Th is is about last nights Academy Awards blunder.

“I think they were focused so hard on politics that they didn’t get the act together at the end,” Trump told Breitbart News. “It was a little sad. It took away from the glamour of the Oscars. It didn’t feel like a very glamorous evening. I’ve been to the Oscars. There was something very special missing, and then to end that way was sad.”

I did not watch them as I never do since Bob Hope stopped being the MC. Trump is the most powerful man on the planet. All the media and his opponents keep telling us that. He has a big ego, and I say so what? Twitter has changed things so if you don't want to hear what he says, stop reading your AP wire at the station.

And I see that Mel Gibson got zip from his Hollywood overlords. The movie Hacksaw Ridge was excellent and the man playing the main character was fantastic. It was also a true story. But we see how petty those Hollywood fools are.

The Oscars did revolve around him you poor ol' pollhead PE and it was a disaster, sets collapsing just before the show, ratings just avoided being the worst ever and then the obvious stupidity at the end. Other than that is was a great show, NOT. ;-)

Well, I did not watch the Oscars and probably few stayed up through the entire the longest marathon Oscar show ever to see the Grand Finale. Told ya. Everything that the libs do blows up in their faces.

Trump, Trump, Trump. You may not like the medicine, but we need a strongman in the Oval Office to kick the vermin out and open a can of Whoop-Ass on the pussies' heads. What an absolute disaster Obama/Bush left us and cleaning up their trash ain't a job for no girlie man with a yellow horn on their bicycle basket.
.. Everytime the playbook says that will make Trump buckle like all the R's before him, Trump doubles down on fake news and calls them very fake news. And he is just getting warmed up and shows no sign of slowing down. Do what it takes, President 45, do what it takes.

The right tool for the right job. My aborable absolutely deporable street fighting man.

Did like how he sent the tranny baby issue back to the states and locales. Each jurisdiction knows what is the best way for their community to handle the bathroom issue. Oh, Bruce Jenner is upset. but I can live with it. If it works one day for one locale and another way for another school district or township, so be it. Very Reagenesque.

PaulE 302pm - DonB's 313pm nailed it Paul; the Oscars did indeed revolve entirely around Trump, the rest was an administrative screw-up. But no one who didn't watch the political pummeling would come to your conclusion from the Breitbart interview Trump. I think it's 'stretched' comments like that which give support to those accusing you of being rabidly anti-Trump.

Former AG Mukasey was just on the Clinton news network schooling the rabid newsreader on the 'russia' thing. He rightly pointed out that there is no crime involved so you could not justify a special prosecutor. The FBI has said Flynn transcripts show no wrong doing of any kind and the FBI rejected the fake news in the NYT Russia article.

Just as the house intelligence chair pointed out today, there is no there, there only a news story that fell apart. Cue to the poor ol' poll head to clutch his perals and wail about the ruskies having 'something' on the president. ;-)

The head of La Raza said in his WP editorial that the administrations enforcement of existing immigration law is the same as slavery. I know we can rely on team lefty to keep this up and ensure their massive defeat in 2018 and the Presidents re-election in 2020. ;-)

Paul, what is your take on the elder Paul's drawing a causal chain to the Clinton administration's push for regime change in Iraq? There was massive bipartisan support for "Establishing a Program to Support a Transition to Democracy in Iraq" and bipartisan support for the first Gulf War. I was carrying a sign a'gin it on the streets of Los Angeles as a Libertarian, were you? G

Imagine if the mistake that was the first gulf war was actually finished at the time, with borders adjusted to match tribal realities (the Brits screwed that up badly). Instead, in a very real sense... the first war really never ended, as they kept violating every term of the cease fire and an armistice never was signed. Don't start wars you don't intend to win. That's bad, n'kay? Imagine WWII ending with a cease fire as the Allies advanced into Germany (and then Japan) and handing administration to some imagined third party as long as Hitler and ToJo pretended to be cooperating.

No need to point out their provocations were not actual strikes against the USA, states or territories. We'd have been better off were the USA just let the middle eastern predominantly Muslim states fight amongst them

I've been busy getting a handle on how to proceed with a few ideas, and recent readings have led me to a desire to get a better handle on the history of argument. Yes, I've read enough Aristotle to have a passing understanding of where the ideas originated but on the science side of the liberal arts (as opposed to the Trivial Arts where most of the Humanities reside), rational, logical debate was virtually a given, or was at least expected.

So, if I'm appearing to lose interest, that is not the case. It's just that it takes a chunk of my budgeted gregory-hours for sparring with the rhetorical barbarians at the gate.

As Barbie (a trademark of a former employer of mine) might say, "Schopenhauer is hard!"

A Canadian tv channel took a look at some fast food chicken products. It seems likely that they expected some bad results for the big 'unhealthy' guys but not so. The 'healthy' subway had a massive surprise for the reporters, it only contained 50% chicken! Miky D's breaded patty came in at 85% chicken and Wendy's did even better with theirs showing 89% chicken.

I get that the big guys have breading on theirs but what the heck was the other half of the Subway 'chicken' made up of? Unfortunately the article failed to address that question. ;-)